What's a Year?
by Nightvowl
Summary: Pam and Tara discover just how long a year can feel when they're apart.


**Pairing**: Pam/Tara

**Rating**: T

**Synopsis**: Pam and Tara discover just how long a year can feel when they're apart.

**Disclaimer**: I don't own nuffin'. Please don't sue.

**Author's Note:** I wrote this because Pamara/Tamela/Para - whatever you call 'em fans convinced me to channel my ramblings on this flawless ship into something people might actually enjoy. You all have yourselves to blame for this. This is my first fanfic and I'll probably write more snapshot type stories like it, cuz that's apparently how my brain works.

What's a Year?

Glacial blue eyes swept across a legion of black lipstick tubes before narrowing on one seemingly indistinguishable from the dozens surrounding.

Pam didn't need to open the case to know it was French Rose. One of countless variations of pink she owned, Pam secretly always thought of the color as her 'wistful shade'. These days, however, it was quickly becoming her 'pathetic love-sick bitch shade'.

Pam rolled her eyes dramatically at herself, as she thought of what a soppy mess she'd become in Tara's absence.

Tara.

The mere thought of her young progeny's name spurred Pam to check her phone for what had to be the hundredth time that night. What could be more pathetic, she wondered, than a sentimental vampire fretting over the time and missed phone calls?

To Pam's credit, it was difficult not to feel sentimental when surrounded by lavish furniture, curtains, throws, duvets, pillows, and even walls covered in a neatly chaotic array of delicate toil de juoy and paisley fabrics.

Tara once joked that the home she and Pam shared looked like it was "designed by the queen's gay cousin". Having been responsible for the design scheme of the house, Pam took great offense at the time. Though, technically, she was the queen's gay distant cousin.

Now, as she looked about their stately London home, Pam nearly found herself longing for the cold confines of the torture chamber at Fangtasia. The rust, chains, and mildew that accented the basement gave her no cause to reminisce or sigh longingly like some dime novel cliché. Dank and dreary as it was, the dungeon was simple.

Predictably, simple was not enough for Pam's issue. Tara wanted them to have a place of their own. It wasn't until the younger vampire first broached the subject that Pam realized she wanted it too. Tara was also the first to suggest a move to London, having been completely regaled by Pam's stories of the life she knew as a young human.

The beautiful, charismatic daughter of a wealthy businessman, Pamela Swynford De Beaufort wanted for nothing. She spent her days and nights idling in the lap of luxury. When she wasn't fending off an endless line of dreadfully boring suitors, she studied French, art, and – in her own special way – the female form.

The almost girlish delight Tara took in hearing even the most mundane details of her maker's human past inspired Pam to remember details she'd long forgotten and, in some cases, longed to forget. So when Tara excitedly suggested that they visit London, Pam couldn't say no. After that, it was only a matter of time before their visit became an extended stay.

Putting the finishing touches on her makeup, Pam scrutinized herself in the mirror.

"You know most people take their makeup _off _before they go bed," Pam could hear Tara's blithe southern cadence as if she were in the room with her and not-wherever the hell she was right now.

"Shit," Pam hissed.

Her anxiety rising, Pam attempted to exercise the positive thinking – or, as she liked to call it, "hippie bullshit" – skills she'd learned from a commune she and Eric ate back in the late sixties.

"What's another day when you've waited a year?" Pam reasoned.

A moment passed as she let the hauntingly familiar words sink in.

Now Pam was pissed.

She recalled the conversation that led to her current state of annoyance.

"Where the FUCK is Namibia?" had been Pam's response to Tara's plan to help a rag tag group of humans and mainstreamers quell a Sanguinista uprising in the small African nation.

At the time, the outburst had only served to amuse her progeny. Unfortunately for Tara, Pam was decidedly unamused and an argument quickly ensued.

Pam ripped Tara for being more concerned about humans than her "own kind".

Tara attempted to remind Pam that they were both humans at one point.

To that, Pam swiftly replied, "don't remind me".

After several hours of cursing, screaming, and priceless antique shattering, Pam and Tara laid down their proverbial swords. They stood before each other with trembling hands and imploring eyes until colliding with force that could easily overturn a flatbed truck.

Pam closed her eyes as she remembered the way Tara hoisted her into her arms and whisked her off to their bed; the bed Pam had since abandoned in favor of a coffin because she simply didn't want to sleep in it without Tara.

Keeping her eyes shut, Pam conjured up an image of her progeny's face on that turbulent night.

It had been Tara's eyes, dilated and dark as pitch in the aftermath of their quarrelsome lovemaking, peering beseechingly into Pam's own that ultimately won the battle.

Pam was fully aware that Tara would never move a continent away on her own and risk her life for a bunch of "breathers" without smoothing things out between them. She also realized that Tara was so compelled to fight, for reasons neither of them could quite ascertain, that she wouldn't be satisfied until she did.

"What's a year when we've got eternity?" Tara questioned earnestly.

Pam knew then that she could never deny her anything. Well, in truth she could, but that would just make her the bad guy.

Funny how that never seemed to matter before, Pam thought wryly.

Keeping her progeny alive had been Pam's greatest priority in the early days of their fledgling relationship. Yet, as the years went by and their bond grew into more than she'd ever imagined it would, Pam had little choice but to be flexible in her approach to Tara. She was as much her partner as she was her progeny.

So if Tara felt compelled to run off and risk her life for mere mortals, who would just as soon stake her, Pam was going to let her go and pray to every deity she could name that she came back.

Fortunately, Tara was very much unlike most vampires her age. She was hardier, faster, stronger, and what she lacked in patience she compensated for in craftiness. People underestimated her and she never failed to use that to her advantage.

As proud as she was of Tara's many abilities, they did little to assuage Pam's worries.

During the year of Tara's absence, Pam felt every bit of the pain her progeny experienced despite the distance between them. So strong was the pain, at times, that Pam had to fight off the urge to mentally summon her back home; to go to Tara and drag her back to England.

Fear, on the other hand, was an emotion Pam seldom, if ever tapped into in Tara. For that Pam was both grateful and fearful. A little fear was good. A little fear kept you alive, so to speak. Vampires who were too brave or even too afraid to be afraid got themselves staked or worse.

At ten weeks old Tara backed down from nothing and no one. Now at ten years old she actively sought out trouble. Pam didn't know whether to be turned on or pissed off at Tara's boldness. Usually, she felt a combination of both.

Other times, Pam was truly frightened by Tara's fearlessness. She would flashback to the moment she found her progeny roasting in a tanning bed and wonder if Tara secretly harbored a true death wish.

A knock on the door broke through Pam's troubling musings.

Pam stood and readied a cutting remark for the uncouth soul – Ginger, most likely - who dared to disturb her at this hour.

But as the door opened and the object of her thoughts and desires stood before her, Pam nearly found herself at a loss for words. Nearly.

"Well…took you long enough," Pam choked out, in a frazzled attempt at nonchalance.

Taking in the sight of her progeny in an outfit she wouldn't wish on her worst enemy, Pam felt an overwhelming flood of affection well up within her and threaten to spill out in droplets of red.

Clad in cargo pants, a faded black tank top, and what Pam could only describe as a nauseatingly pea green army jacket, Tara still managed to be the most beautiful sight she had ever laid her pale eyes on.

"Airline lost me," Tara replied with a smirk, as if the fact that her travel coffin ended up in Scotland as opposed to London was no big deal.

Pam made a mental note to tell her off for flying a human airline instead of Anubis.

"They offered me a flight comin' in later on tonight," Tara continued as she took a step toward Pam. "Figured I'd be better off hoofin' it," she added with a shrug.

"You walked here?" Pam inquired, her voice breathy with disbelief.

"Ran," Tara corrected.

"You. _Ran_. Here," Pam pressed on more firmly, as baffled by her progeny as ever.

"I needed to see you," Tara replied sincerely and without flourish.

It took all of Pam's reserve then not to rip the foolhardy young vampire's clothes off and make love to her until the sun came up in – she remembered the time - three minutes.

Shit.

A wry smile played on Tara's disconcertingly innocent face. She knew exactly what Pam was considering.

"French Rose," Tara stated matter-of-factly while staring at her maker. "That bad, huh?"

Taken aback by the unexpected observation, Pam began to laugh despite herself. She continued to laugh until frustration, incredulity, and relief flowed together and welled up in her eyes.

Seeing this, Tara pulled Pam into an embrace faster than her tears could fall and kissed her with all the emotion and intensity her exhausted body could muster before the coming dawn. Ever the overachieving vampire, she sought to convey in a minute what she'd been feeling for a year.

As impossible as that was, Pam understood and returned the kiss with a languid sweetness no one but Tara would have thought her capable. Parting slightly, she began to slowly and reverently kiss every one of her progeny's weary features.

Squeezing her eyes shut and reveling in the sensation of Pam's impossibly soft lips on her, Tara allowed her hands to rediscover the subtle curvature of Pam's waist, hips, and ass.

Try as she might, however, Tara couldn't shake the haunting images of the past year that sprang to her mind unbidden.

In her time away, Tara bore witness to unspeakable atrocities. She'd even committed them to gain the trust of those she sought to destroy. She grew to be firm friends with a few of the humans she fought alongside, only to watch them be viciously drained, and torn asunder.

After months of conflict, the not so secret war being fought in Namibia became impossible for the world powers to ignore, and U.N. peacekeepers were dispatched. With their assistance, the Namibian Sanguinistas were all but eradicated in what was widely considered a small victory for humans and mainstreamers everywhere.

There was no sense of victory for Tara, only a pervasive sense of anger and regret. Being away from her maker amidst such senseless destruction, filled Tara with a sense of despair and loneliness she'd never known.

Even now, with Pam in her arms, it pained Tara to think of what she felt all those months in Africa. An anguished groan sounded from someplace deep within her as she shook her head in frustration.

Pam shuddered as the guttural noise reverberated through her body. She could literally feel the turmoil Tara was in and wanted nothing more to soothe her, to take her and cradle her like a child until her anguish subsided. Instead, she watched and waited for her progeny to emerge from the depths of her troubled mind.

Clenching her jaw and opening her intensely dark eyes, Tara looked up at her Pam determinedly.

"I can't be without you again. I won't…" Tara faltered as she struggled to find the right words to convey what she felt. Fixed beneath Pam's smoky blue gaze, she could hardly believe she'd willingly parted from her.

As she waited for the words to come, Pam allowed her thumb the pleasure of stroking Tara's soft lips before claiming them with her mouth.

The soul shattering kiss that ensued was all Pam could do to show Tara that she understood and felt the same, that being without her made for the most torturous twelve months of her nearly one-hundred and sixty years on earth.

Pam moaned and lightly nipped at Tara's bottom lip in protest as she felt the younger woman pull away to finish what she had to say. Keeping her sights trained on Pam, Tara finally spoke:

"Eternity or not, that was a long fuckin' time."

Tara's tone was fierce and her expression was fiercer as she deftly lifted Pam and felt the blonde's long limbs instinctively fold around her neck and waist.

"No kiddin'?" Pam questioned sarcastically before Tara walked them toward their bedroom, where they would remain for days and nights to follow in an ardent effort to make up for the time they'd spent apart.

**The End.**


End file.
